For those of you who do not live in the United States, Dr. Ben Carson, he is a noted brain surgeon. He is also a climate change denier and believes that evolution is a myth. Not that any of that would matter except for the fact that Ben Carson is also the leading Republican candidate for president. In recent polls he ties Hillary Clinton, the leading Democratic candidate.

People admire his calm temperament and gentle demeanor and tend to not hear what he actually says. Others, way too many, admire his demeanor and absolutely agree with his beliefs.

Is it a hoax, it isn't? He can't seriously be the next president of the US.

He is leading in the polls.

There is a great deal of ignorance about basic history in this country. Add to that the Fundamentalist tendencies of a sizable part of the American public and the distrust of any authority which makes someone who has rather oddball beliefs based on god only what equal to someone who has devoted his or her life to a subject or discipline and frankly, I don't know if this will hurt him or not.

What I don't understand is why there is so much irrationality in a developed, educated country like America. That your next President could genuinely believe the Pyramids were created as grain silos scares me.

Carson also says this about the Sphinx...

Quote:

In 2009 Carson wrote an essay for his now deleted Live journal account claiming that the Great Sphinx of Giza was not a creature with the body of a lion and the head of a human, but instead “an ugly cat with a hat on. The confusion stems from the fact that anything looks human with a hat on. Put a hat on a turtle, a monkey, a bat, tell me I’m wrong.”

This claim doesn’t seem to originate from any source outside Carson’s own imaginings. An independent study conducted by the Guardian concluded that putting a hat on a monkey primarily resulted in a cute idea for a calendar, and that getting a hat on a bat is basically impossible. But Carson was right about the turtle.

For once I find myself agreeing with the Egyptian government; who appear sane by comparison.

Quote:

Egyptian antiquities officials have scoffed at claims by the Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson that Egypt’s ancient pyramids were not built as pharaonic tombs but used to store grain.

“Does he even deserve a response? He doesn’t,” said the antiquities minister, Mamdouh el-Damaty, on the sidelines of a news conference about recent thermal scans of the pyramids that could reveal hidden tombs.

Carson’s comments have received little attention in Egypt – where people are accustomed to accepted expert views about the 4,500-year-old structures – but have drawn interest in the United States where the retired neurosurgeon has jumped to the top of the crowded Republican presidential field.

Last week Carson stood by his belief that Egypt’s great pyramids were built by the Biblical figure Joseph to store grain, an assertion dismissed by experts who say it’s accepted science that they were tombs for pharaohs.

Mahmoud Afifi, Egypt’s head of ancient antiquities, said Carson’s comments were similar to other inaccurate theories about the pyramids, including that they were built by Atlanteans from a mythical lost continent.

“A lot of people are trying to prove that the pyramids weren’t built for burials,” said Afifi. “Maybe they’re comments used for publicity like that man who’s not an archaeologist and says they stored grain, and I don’t know what that was based on.”

Carson has expounded his “personal theory” that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain. He referred to the Old Testament story of Joseph predicting famine and advising the pharaoh to store surplus food.

“Some people believe in the Bible like I do and don’t find that to be silly at all, and believe that God created the Earth and don’t find that to be silly at all,” Carson said. “The secular progressives try to ridicule it every time it comes up and they’re welcome to do that.”

Okay, now I'm not saying that anyone should or shouldn't vote for him. But the topic of ancient Egypt has nothing to do with issues of the election. It's not even a moral topic. Should voters even care what a politician may think about a topic that is so trivial compared to the issues of the election?

... Should voters even care what a politician may think about a topic that is so trivial compared to the issues of the election?

What should the voters else worry about? What suits he wears? The thinking determines the behave... Apart from that, I personally would be embarrassed represented in the world by such a fool._________________Ägyptologie - Forum (German)

Economy...protecting the borders...you name it. My point is that voters should be primarily concerned with how knowledgeable a candidate is on critical topics, not how knowledgeable he or she is about ancient Egypt or any other comparably trivial topic.

Carson should know better than to inaccurately interpret history for political gain. I am inclined to think this topic is trivial, but when put in the religious context one sees how such a thing is anything but irrelevant or trivial.

I'm still not sure what the issues of the election are, I have been watching the run up to the election play out on the TV screen all this year, and it's all I will hear about next year, and I still don't know what issues are important to the American people. So far it's all just been about the candidates personalities.

To be honest the west is locked into this totalitarian way of being where politicians and big business are completely detached from the people at the moment that I feel we are at a point where no matter who leads us nothing in our societies is going to change to any significant degree and elections have kind of become irrelevant.

All in the hands of unprepared insane overchurched morons? What wrong could happen?

This is very rude. Can't we have a respectful conversation? Some folks on this forum (including me) call this country home, and insults like these very impolite. I always try to phrase my comments politely, and it'd make for nicer conversation if others would, too.

I'm still not sure what the issues of the election are, I have been watching the run up to the election play out on the TV screen all this year, and it's all I will hear about next year, and I still don't know what issues are important to the American people. So far it's all just been about the candidates personalities.

It's true that the media focuses more on personalities at this point in the game--maybe viewers find it more interesting? Being a responsible voter can be hard work!

You'll never find a single candidate whose values and policies perfectly match your own. In the end, people really just have to vote for the party that most closely aligns with their own views.

All in the hands of unprepared insane overchurched morons? What wrong could happen?

This is very rude. ...

No, this is the expression of the fears and anxieties of people who had to make in the past the experience, that the guy in the White House could have no qualms about inventing evidence to satisfy his family-revenge, with an attack to a whole land - without regard to the resulting problems (at the time and, inter alia, for Europe and also for millions of refugees from Iraq and Syria)._________________Ägyptologie - Forum (German)